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Logged In or Out, Facebook Is Watching You
kaos07 links to this ZDNet story, according to which "Researchers at software vendor CA have discovered that social networking site Facebook is able to track the buying habits of its users on affiliated third-party sites even when they are logged out of their account or have opted out of its controversial 'Beacon' tracking service. Responding to privacy concerns, Facebook has since moved to reassure users that it only tracks and publishes data about their purchases if they are both logged in to Facebook and have opted-in to having this information listed on their profile. But in 'extremely disconcerting' findings that directly contradict these assurances, researchers at CA's Security Advisory service have found that data about these transactions are sent to Facebook regardless of a user's actions."
The title has a built-in "In Soviet Russia joke.
Face your daemons!
"Facebook is able to track the buying habits of its users on affiliated third-party sites even when they are logged out of their account or have opted out of its controversial 'Beacon' tracking service."
I should have known there was a problem when I was signing up and saw this:
[ ] Opt out of Beacon(tm) on-line tracking when logged into Facebook; opt in to Lighthouse(tm) on-line tracking when logged out of Facebook.
The enemies of Democracy are
This is an outrage! How DARE they try and sell me things! This is almost as infuriating as Vons/Safeway and their "club card", tracking my purchases to try and "Better serve me". Horsefeathers! The fact that the products I want are in stock at any given point is PROOF that they've been using my spending habits to PREDICT MY NEEDS, which goes against everything I believe in.
When I say I want a free social networking site, it's not good enough that I not be billed directly for using it. The company hosting it must be desperately trying to sustain the bandwidth and CPU time for my constant page refreshes. At no point should they be even breaking even, let alone PROFITING from their service. Information wants to be free! Down with Big Brother! Doublethink! Free as in beer! ...What else... Oh! And my cell phone bill is too high!
Your friend has invited you to use the application "Big Brother", would you like to add this application?
Would you like to be a Vampire/Pirate/Zombie instead?
Change your profile picture to goatse...they should take card of the rest.
telnet facebook.com 80
Trying 69.63.176.140...
Connected to facebook.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
GET stuffed!
400 Bad Request
Bad Request
Your browser sent a request that this server could not understand.
Invalid URI in request GET stuffed!
Connection closed by foreign host.
Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris.
There's a way around that. Kill your entire family, move to a different country, and insist all your new friends call you by your internet name.
Stasis is death. Embrace change.
They also can only track you if you use a computer!
You sound really fun. Want to come to my LAN party after work? Oh wait, you're a joyless fuckstick.
Better solution: Be boring as hell. Works for me!
Hans?
In Soviet Russia .
You watch Facebook ..
Oh, wait ... WTF !!?!?
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc